Doctors, doctors, what must we do to get you out of politics and back to the practice of medicine. The American Medical Association is pulling out all the stops and concentrating their efforts on maintaining their profit margins. As a result expect to see patients' suffering increase and fewer Medicare patients being seen by doctors. They want you to think otherwise, but profits are profits, and that is what the latest efforts are all about, keeping the profits healthy, not the patients.
The resolution passed by the AMA House of Delegates at their 2011 Interim Meeting says it is for strengthening physician-patient bond, but with this also goes allowing patients to contract privately with physicians and Medicare to pick up the tab. We all know what will be the result. Medicare will refuse to reimburse many of the charges and the patient will be on the hook for the balance of the bill.
No wonder this resolution in one of its “highest priorities.” Profits are protected and Medicare patients will have to foot the bill. This will separate the Medicare protection of over and unneeded charges by doctors and leave the patient paying the differences. If the doctors succeed, they can run up the charges with unneeded tests which the patient will be forced to pay. Many patients may not be the brightest of patients, but this is one ploy that begs for exposure and what the physicians are trying to slide by Congress to “empower that relationship (the patient–doctor relationship) by empowering the patient and his or her self-determination."
This is how the physicians are trying to sugar-coat the bill and keep their profits healthy or increase them at the expense of the patient. We do not need a light shined on this to see the intentions. We can read this even using infrared luminescence.
Read the press release here.
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